_Maple Family_
Trees or shrubs with watery often saccharine sap, opposite, simple and
palmately lobed leaves and axillary or terminal, cymose or racemose,
regular, polygamous or diœcious flowers; fruit of 2 long-winged
samaras, joined at the base.
[Sidenote: =Acer glabrum= Torr. _Smooth Maple._]
A shrub or small tree 6—30 feet high, 2—8 inches in diameter, smooth
throughout except the scales which are densely soft, hairy inside.
Leaves round-cordate with shallow sinus, 2—4 inches broad and nearly
as long, more or less deeply 3-lobed or parted, the ovate-acuminate
lobes doubly serrate with slender teeth; conspicuously veined. Flowers
greenish-yellow, somewhat corymbose on short 2-leaved branchlets
appearing after the leaves. Fruit smooth with slightly spreading wings
about an inch long.
One of the few deciduous trees of the region, growing on slopes with
the other forest trees and in the moist valleys.